Various wireless access technologies have been proposed or implemented to enable mobile stations to perform communications with other mobile stations or with wired terminals coupled to wired networks. Examples of wireless access technologies include GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) and UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) technologies, defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP); and CDMA 2000 (Code Division Multiple Access 2000) technologies, defined by 3GPP2.
As part of the continuing evolution of wireless access technologies to improve spectral efficiency, to improve services, to lower costs, and so forth, new standards have been proposed. One such new standard is the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard from 3GPP, which seeks to enhance the UMTS wireless network, through the implementation of an OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) air interface, to afford greater uplink (from mobile station to base station) and downlink (from base station to mobile station) capacities. The CDMA 2000 wireless access technology from 3GPP2 is also evolving; the evolution of CDMA 2000 is referred to as the Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB) access technology, which supports significantly higher rates and reduced latencies.
Another type of wireless access technology, also implementing a type of OFDM technology, is based on the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) 802.16d/e specifications, and has been adopted by the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (“WiMAX”) forum to provide wireless broadband access.
The existing control channel design used for many wireless access technologies, including those discussed above, is relatively inefficient. The control channel, which contains control information sent from a base station to mobile stations to enable the mobile stations to properly receive downlink data and to transmit uplink data, typically includes a relatively large amount of information. In some cases, such control channels with relatively large amounts of information are broadcast to multiple mobile stations in a cell or cell sector. The overhead associated with such broadcasts of control channels makes using such techniques inefficient, since substantial amounts of available power and bandwidth may be consumed by the broadcast of such control channels. Note that the power of the broadcast control channel has to be high enough to reach the mobile station with the weakest wireless connection in the cell or cell sector.